


wake up in your crystal sky

by hearden



Series: trimberly week 2019 [1]
Category: Power Rangers (2017)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Space, F/F, Fluff, Trimberly Week
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-22
Updated: 2019-07-22
Packaged: 2020-07-10 05:41:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,118
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19900726
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hearden/pseuds/hearden
Summary: When Trini can't sleep, she meditates, and, out in space, she ends up not sleeping pretty often.(day one of trimberly week)





	wake up in your crystal sky

**Author's Note:**

  * For [lyricsRpoems](https://archiveofourown.org/users/lyricsRpoems/gifts).



> for rosie: hear me out. soft gays. in space.
> 
> as my return to writing fanfic after months, i really went and double booked myself and said "i'm going to write trimberly week AND prepare to start grad school" so. this week is going to be a dumpster fire. hope y'all enjoy.

Trini's always able to get out of bed without disturbing Kim. It's an unfortunate talent that Kim keeps trying to train herself to anticipate, but she can't quite get it. However, she's gotten a lot better at waking up shortly after Trini's gone. It used to be just her stirring whenever Trini came back, but this time, she rolls over, her arm flopping out into empty space, and she picks her head up, blearily staring at darkness.

Taking a moment to sit up and rub the sleep out of her eyes, Kim gets out of bed and pads across the room, bracing herself for the lighting of the hallway as their bedroom door slides open. The metal of the spaceship is cold against her bare feet, as it always is, but she's come to not mind it as much. She walks right past Jason and Tommie's and Billy and Zack's rooms, checking in the Command Center for Trini first. Sometimes, she's here, talking with Alpha or just gazing at the navcharts.

She's not. Kim yawns and waves at Alpha.

"Kimberly?" he asks, tilting his saucer-shaped head, "Can't sleep?"

"Looking for Trini," she answers, stepping up to the central console and squinting at the hologram of their current path. "How many hours 'til we drop out of hyperspace?"

"Eleven."

Kim groans and rubs at her eyes again. "You know where Trini is?"

Alpha shrugs. "I haven't seen her, but I've also been here for the past few hours. Maybe try the simulator room."

Walking off in that direction, Kim stretches and gets the sleep out of her system as she takes several turns down the winding hallways of the spaceship. The thrum of the engines is low, almost imperceptible, and she's familiar enough with it that it doesn't keep her awake at night. Her brain, normally, would focus on something so benign and make it impossible for her to get to sleep if she was at home in Angel Grove.

Kim arrives at the door to the simulator room and taps at the access panel, checking to see if it's occupied. It is, so she just stands there, unsure of what to do. If Trini's having alone time, then she probably shouldn't interrupt her. Turning on her heel, Kim takes a few steps, deciding to just go back to bed.

The door slides open behind her. "You think really loudly," Trini says, leaning against the doorframe, "Even through alien metal."

Kim chuckles, softly, and turns around to take a look at her. Trini's dressed in her pajamas as well, just a tank top and sweatpants, no bedhead while Kim still has a tuft of hair sticking up. "What were you doing?" she asks, "Meditating? Or training?"

"Meditating." Trini nods inside the simulator room. "You wanna join me?"

"That's really private for you. I don't wanna be a distraction."

"I can teach you how not to be," Trini offers. She holds out her hand. "Come on."

Kim lets Trini lead her into the simulator room and waits for Trini to tap in some commands into the control panel next to the door. The room flickers, holograms shifting it into a familiar set of woods overlooking a small cliff outcrop. The ceiling itself turns into Angel Grove's clear night sky. Kim smiles to herself then follows Trini to the cliff where they just sit, the grass and ground as real as anything.

Idly, she picks at a few blades of grass by her leg, twiddling them between her fingers. "Was this where you just were?"

"Mhm."

Kim gazes at the lake, recalling the last time she'd dived into those waters. It was a lifetime ago, back when Tommie was still the Green Ranger and before they'd begun this mission into space. She knows it's just a metal floor covered by holograms, now, so she doesn't act on the impulse to cliffdive again.

Trini takes one of her hands, tangling their fingers together. Kim drops the blade of grass and watches it drift down and down before it lightly lands in the reflective waters below, creating a small ripple.

"Why couldn't you sleep?" Kim asks, rubbing her thumb along the back of Trini's hand. Sometimes, it's nightmares; sometimes, it's just bad dreams or restlessness or Trini sleeping on her chest when she should be on her back.

"No particular reason."

"What were you thinking about?"

"Do you want me to teach you how to be quiet?" Trini asks at exactly the same time.

There's an awkward moment of silence before Trini blinks and clarifies, "I'm not telling you that you need to be quiet."

Kim chuckles. About a year ago, she would've taken it in that way, but she's gotten used to Trini, to them interrupting each other at the wrong moment, laughing over words coming out the wrong way. "I know. But, yeah, I'd like that."

They bond over her silence, which is always hard for Kim; she likes noise, likes talking to fill up airspace. Silence makes her nervous. But noise makes Trini nervous, so they've had to find ways to compromise in the time they've been together. It'd frustrated Kim and driven her up the wall when they first took off for space. Out here, it's  _ too _ quiet. Nothing's alive but a bunch of space dust and rocks, and the ship's engine is a lot more subdued than she'd expected it to be.

Trini had taken her hands, cradled them like they were precious gems, and spun her an analogy. "It's like a radio, Kim. You and I -- we operate on different frequencies. Just like Billy and Zack or Jason and Tommie. If a station isn't coming in clear, what do you do?"

"You fiddle with the dial until it does," Kim had answered. She'd specifically resisted the urge to say, "You plug your phone in the aux cord because who listens to the radio anymore?"

"Yeah. That's what this is. We can find the frequency that both of us run on. Together."

It'd taken so much time. So much listening. Whenever they docked at a port, explored planets Kim couldn't have even fathomed, then it felt like things were okay. She shoved her insecurities about her relationship with Trini to the side and focused on what she was good at: chasing down bad guys and looking good while doing it.

But, back on the ship, her anxiety would start up again. Listening was incredibly difficult -- and to someone  _ else, _ to top it off. Kim got along with everyone else so easily. Jason didn't really take much. He's a boy, and boys, for the most part, were really malleable, personality-wise. Zack didn't, either, but that was because she and Zack bonded over being the most extraverted people on the team. Billy was a little harder, but not by much; he was extraverted, too, and that helped bridge them by a lot; she'd just ask him about his sketchbook or what he was working on, and he'd talk for hours. Kim was always happy to listen.

But, Trini and Tommie? A lot more difficult. Introverts, quiet, reserved. Six people on a spaceship, four are extraverts, and the other two need so much alone time in order to deal with it. Jason got quieter once he and Tommie started dating; he mimics people, Kim's come to notice. Well, she didn't notice it. Trini pointed it out to her, and then Kim went, "Oh, my God, that makes so much sense." And Tommie's a bit more talkative than Trini, anyway, still struggling with her Green Ranger past but eager to have friends.

On the other hand, Trini's still herself. Just because she has a team now doesn't mean she stops keeping to herself, and Kim can't force her to talk more, even though she'd want to. That'd be immoral.

That shared frequency had taken an incredible amount of time to find. It was Trini telling Kim more about her family and home life unprompted; it was Kim blowing up at Trini one night because they'd almost died on Vekar and she was just frustrated and the ship had been so  _ quiet-- _ so Trini didn't talk to her for the next week. That'd been a rough time for both of them.

"You have to learn how to  _ listen, _ " Trini emphasized.

Kim had countered with her own, "How do I even  _ know, _ huh? How do I even know what listening looks like?"

She doesn't even know, now, if she truly knows. If something like that is definable. It's a good guess that she hasn't messed up by now since they're still together, but it's tough to have to constantly remind herself that Trini's silence or reserved nature on some days isn't her fault and isn't an invitation to keep talking.

Trini stands, tugging Kim up with her. Below them lays the calm waters of the lake, and above them, the night sky. "I'm going to go turn off the artificial gravity."

"Okay? Is this part of the 'teaching me how to be quiet'?" Kim then clamps her mouth shut when she remembers she probably shouldn't ask so many questions if Trini's taking the time to let her into something personal.

Trini just chuckles. "Yeah, it is." She goes over to the control panel, inputting the command to turn off the artificial gravity, then carefully hops back over to Kim, her body not as weighed down anymore. Kim herself is starting to drift off from the ground, and Trini grabs her in a half-tackle, half-hug, sending them actually flying up and over the lake.

Kim laughs, shoulders shaking. "How is this teaching me to be quiet? You're gonna make us fall into the water, Trini."

"Patience," Trini says, pressing a kiss to Kim's jaw, "It's a virtue."

They float, playfully pushing at each other, until they get stuck in the middle of the room with nothing to hold onto and nothing to push off of, suspended in the air.

"Close your eyes," Trini instructs, already doing so.

Kim does the same, resisting the urge to ask why.

"Think about all the sounds you can hear right now. Keep reaching out until you're sure you've taken everything in."

The water below them, gentle sounds of the night, a breeze against the trees -- all illusions from the room's simulations, but Kim includes them, anyway. Trini breathing. Her own breathing. Deeper, the soft hum of the ship's engines as they quietly slip through hyperspace.

"Do you have everything?"

Kim nods. "I think so."

"Find one sound. One sound you want to focus on. Imagine you're in a room or a house and every time you walk into another room, close the door behind you and leave one of those other sounds behind. Until there's nothing left but that one sound."

Trini falls quiet, and Kim decides to focus her ears on Trini's breathing. First, she takes away the water below; it's the loudest one to her right now, but the easiest to tune out. Then, she closes the door on the breeze and the night, blocking out the environment they're in. With her eyes closed, she wouldn't even know if they're still in the simulated reality of the woods anymore. Then, she blocks out the ship, and her breathing falls in line with Trini's.

And there's nothing else she hears except for that.

They stay like that for minutes, surely, but, in her mind, it feels like an hour has passed when Trini quietly breaks the silence and says, "You can open your eyes, now, Kim. Let all the other sounds back in, but slowly. Don't overwhelm your senses."

Kim lets the sounds back in as she opens her eyes. They're still floating over the lake, and Trini smiles at her, soft and genuine.

"How was that?"

"Really… peaceful," she says, a bit surprised. "Everything was so quiet. My head is usually… pretty loud."

Trini chuckles. "I can imagine."

Kim takes one of Trini's hands and brings it up to her lips, kissing each one of her knuckles. "I chose your breathing," she says, slightly bashful, "As my sound."

"Oh, I know." Trini grins, smug. "I was trying to choose your breathing as mine, but then it kept changing and I figured out what you were doing." She shakes her head. "Really gay, Hart."

"I do try my best." Kim pulls her in for a kiss, keeping it slow and soft, before resting their foreheads together. "Do you wanna go back to bed now?"

Trini raises her eyebrows. "Is it okay if I say no? Are you tired?"

Kim shrugs. "I'm awake now, so."

"Then I'd like to stay here for a bit."

"I'll keep you company, then."

**Author's Note:**

> title from Starlight - Jai Wolf


End file.
